The Trigger
by Corbeaun
Summary: On fear and cowardice. Clark doesn't trust Lex. Slightly AU.


Summary: Slight AU. On cowardice and fear; Clark doesn't trust Lex.

Spoilers: Tempest & Vortex

The Trigger

by Corbeaun

You see that, that overrun field? Yeah, that one -- next to old Miss Birten's orchard. Family farming's not too good these days, but prime farmland still don't come cheap. And that land's just been sitting there for near ten years. You surprised? Yeah. Well, wasn't always that way. Much of the farm's gone now, but the cellar's still there. You can see it in the winter when the grass dies and the ground is bare. All this -- and the barn that's gone now -- used to belong to the McKlintocks.

When me and Pete were about eight, the neighboring kids would gather at the old McKlintock barn because while it sure ain't as red-paint slick and pretty as the Bernahem's a couple acres over, it was tall and sweet-smelling, with plenty of fresh hay for the kids to roll in and that was what mattered. Old farmer McKlintock was a funny old man, been funnier ever since his only son died in a freak tractor accident the fall of my seventh year, but he was unfailing sweet on the kids. Didn't have much left in life but us, I guess. The barn wasn't much used anymore anyway for proper barn stuff, and old McKlintock had fitted a good rope swing from the beam of the loft so that the kids who got on it felt as if they were really flying. They'd push off on that swing, wait till their outstretched toes touched the ceiling beams and then, with a loud whoop, launch themselves off the ropes, through the air, and onto the soft hay on the barn floor.

Come harvest time, Pete and all four of his brothers tumbled like monkeys from that swing and onto the fresh haystacks till straw stuck out from them like overstuffed scarecrows. Me, I mostly sat and watched. I wanted to join them, wanted something terrible to be them. Just. Normal. I wanted that. But the swing was ten feet up, and ten feet is a long ways from the ground even for a four feet tall eight year old. And I was afraid of heights. Every time I stepped up to the edge of that loft where the swing was -- and I tried, I tried so many times -- Every time I --

The kids called me yellow-bellied.

Pete stuck by me, and mostly he and his brothers could get them to shut their mouths. Good old Pete. But even Pete -- Well, sometimes I'd catch him giving me the eye, as if he was seeing me just like everyone else was. Me, Clark Jerome Kent -- nothing but a yellow-bellied, scaredy-cat.

That hurt. I'd known Pete ever since I could remember, been friends for just as long. He'd found me -- bare as the day I was born -- in his mother's tomato patch when I was five. (At that age, Mom had the hardest time keeping me in my clothes.) Pete tells me he'd looked at that naked boy and decided help was needed and that he was it; we were friends from that day onward.

We didn't really understand each other. But we were friends.

The fall when Pete and me were eight, the McKlintock farm went under. Debts were not paid and the bank foreclosed on the farm. My mom and dad shook their heads a lot at this news -- things like this was happening more and more often to Smallville farmers -- but there was nothing anyone could do.

Mister Bernahem bought the farm. He didn't tolerate kids.

The night before he would be taking down that rope swing, Pete and I slipped out of our houses to that old barn. One last try, you see, for me to prove I was no coward. We were just about to climb the stairs to the loft when the barn door opened, and in walked Mister Bernahem and old man McKlintock.

Pete and I held our breaths; we huddled closer together in the corner where a haystack hid us. We were so close that I could see Mister Bernahem's pressed pants leg right around our haystack. Old man McKlintock's face was hard and thin under the yellow sodium light.

Mister Bernahem and old man McKlintock were talking.

"Bernie, I don't have many years left. All I ask is you let me stay in the farmhouse. I'll work for you, I'll work hard. This farm's all I've ever known."

"Look Ian, I'm in this for the business, so don't take me for a bleeding-heart lefty. I told you before, tomorrow Tuesday -- that's the longest I'll give you. Stay past Tuesday and I'll have you shot for trespassing."

"All my life I've been on this farm. My only family, my wife and son, is here -- that dogwood tree over there, they were both buried under that tree. I won't leave my son and wife alone, Bernie."

"Your son, Ian? Your son? You deluded old man."

"Please don't talk that way about my wife --"

"My God, Ian, you are a fool. A great sentimental fool. You probably also think that little Georgie boy would have happily continued running the farm even if he had the guts not to kill himself, just like his namesake --"

"I warn you, Bernahem, don't bring Georgette into this --"

"You think you can leave them alone, Ian? Huh? Pretty little Georgette, town's golden girl, marrying a no good shriveled up cripple. How many months did it take before your pretty young wife would rather take a carving knife to her own throat --"

"I said, leave my wife outta this!"

"Everyone in town wondered why a pretty young thing like her would marry an old cripple like you. Well, found that out six months after the wedding -- Tell me, Ian, did she ever tell you the name of the father? Or did she kill herself before --"

Mr. Bernahem suddenly staggered.

I let out a surprised squeak as he fell on top of me. The hay hiding Pete and me toppled. Pete cried out. I crashed to the ground, Mr. Bernahem on top of me. His head lolled on my shoulder. His eyes -- they weren't right. He was slumped against me, and -- oh god, he wasn't breathing, he wasn't --

I was babbling, crying. "Mister Bern, oh god, Mister Bern, don't do this, don't do this --" There was blood on my hands, my face, and none of it mine.

A hand yanked me up by the arm; it was old man McKlintock. "Get up boy -- you too Ross. Both of you get over here." His face was firm, but not unkind. He gestured with the shotgun.

Pete didn't say anything, shivering harder than a wet dog. He shook his head convulsively, not moving from the corner. I gulped down a cry as the old man suddenly let go of my arm. I instantly scrambled away from him to Pete. We were like two drowning kittens, clinging onto each other.

A strange look passed over his face then, like he'd bitten into an orange with the peel still on.

"Look boys," his voice was so quiet and -- I remember this -- very gentle, as he lowered his gun, "I won't hurt you."

Pete, who was shivering against me, remained mute. I felt his fingers stiffen on my arm, but I didn't feel pain. I was cold -- colder than I'd ever been in my short life. "Please," my voice broke; I tried again, "Please let us go home. We don't know nothing, sir, nothing."

He looked at us with that same strange expression from before. A sour look, surprised in a way, but angry too. He didn't say anything for a long time.

"I can't let you boys go," he finally said. "You saw what I did to Mister Bernahem. Boys like to tell tales --" a whimper escaped from Pete, "-- you tell what happened and the police comes and takes me away. Away from my farm and George. And Georgette. I can't have that. Unless --"

-- unless I kill you, I thought.  
"--unless you kill me," the old man said.

He smiled at me. Pete stopped shivering, cold and unresponsive beneath my hand.

"What do you say, Clark?"

"I can't do that, sir," I was openly sobbing now, too scared to be ashamed, "I can't, I can't."

"Clark, don't be afraid," he slowly walked toward me and Pete, "the police will think you did it in self-defense. Poor crazy old cripple, they'll say," he was closer suddenly, too close, shotgun in hand, "monster, coward -- of course he'll murder two innocent boys to save his own skin." He was right in front of me. Pete was so quiet, so very very quiet. The old man took my hand and laid it on the barrel of the shotgun. "It won't take anything, Clark, just one push."

"NO!"

And I found myself with the shotgun in my arms, the weight nothing, aim on the old man.

The old man laughed, delighted.

"That's it, Clark. You're a strong boy, aren't you?" He moved forward till his neck was pressed against the opening of the gun barrel. I trembled. "Do it," he reached out, curled his fingers around my trigger finger. "Do it and you can go home. You want to go home, don't you boy?"

I wanted to, I wanted so much --

"That's it, Clark, that's it..."

In the distance I heard the rumble of a truck rolling down the dirt path to the barn.

The old man heard it too. He smiled wider at me. "Time's up, boy," he said, and pulled the trigger.

A sound of thunder, and then a thick wet plop, like that of a rotten orange mashed to the ground -- the old man's severed head. The rest of his body followed it to the barn floor a second later.

And that was how the Ross brothers found me -- crouched before the bodies -- and Pete catatonic beside me.

I don't remember much of later.

* * *

I don't know.

I don't know what I would have done. If I had not heard the truck then. If the old man had not pulled the trigger. I don't know. Maybe I would have pulled the trigger myself; maybe I wouldn't. I don't know. I can't ask Pete. He doesn't remember any of this. All I know is I was scared. I wasn't thinking about Pete at all at the end. I was too scared for myself.

And this is the truth. This I know.

* * *

Lex. 

When you saved my father by killing Nixon, when you pulled that trigger on him --

There was such a look on your face. Tell me.

Whom were you scared for?

* * *

Author's Notes: 

"The Trigger" was originally supposed to be about a dead son and meteors in the cellar, and Clark and Lex solving a mystery and being thrown into the jaws of fate -- at least a R rating -- but it kinda. warped.

In the first section, Clark is telling Lex about his childhood and his friendship with Pete. The rest of the story is what he can't/wouldn't say to Lex. And in case it's not obvious, the Rift does exist in this story universe.

* * *

Written for (LJ) thecaelum in the SV/SGA Flash Fiction Challenge 

10.24.2005


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